I know I’ve been writing a lot about the rude people I interact with, and my mom is freaking out about it. “Heather, everyone is going to wonder about you!” I don’t constantly run into rude people, and I’m definitely not someone who deserves to be treated badly (I don’t think). I’ve just had a run of weirdos lately, and the weirdos ALWAYS make for a better story. But because my mom is currently on Maddie duty, allowing me my first blissful night of uninterrupted sleep in weeks (teething suuuucks), I figure I can appease my mama and tell a story about someone being extra nice to me. Ah, I hear all of you clicking through to the next blog. It’s cool, except this story involves blood and medical drama! Yes, again!

From Thursday to Sunday morning, Mike and I were dog sitting for our friend Alison. This is her dog, Dignan.
Dignan peeking out at me.
Mike loves Dignan so much, that I swear when he reads this at work he will gasp and yell, “DIIIIIIIGNAAAAN!”

Dignan is a Yorkshire Terrier, and so well-trained and well-behaved that it shines a bright light on the terrible job I did training Rigby. Anyway, Dignan eats canned dog food. Rigby eats dry dog food. Dignan eats his food twice a day, Rigby free feeds (that is for her own good, trust me). On Thursday, Dignan had already had his breakfast, so I just had to give him a can of food for dinner. It had one of those ring-things, so I just had to pull on it, I didn’t need a can opener. I’m not entirely sure what happened…I know I was talking to Mike, tugging on the lid of the can. And the lid kind of got stuck, so I thought, “I should just get a spoon and scoop it out.” But then as I walked back to Dignan’s bowl I decided to give the lid one more tug…and the lid came off and sliced my pinkie finger from right below my nail bed all the way around to the middle of the tip.

I think I sort of blacked out in a haze of blood and curse words. I just remember being in the kitchen, yelling at two dogs to NOT lick my blood up off the floor. I rinsed my hand to ensure no dog food got in the cut (BARF) and then I wrapped it tightly. But before I wrapped it, I got a good look at the cut. Well, as good a look as one can get when blood is gushing out of a wound. I knew it was bad. If Mike had cut his finger this badly, I would have dragged him kicking and screaming to the hospital. But since I am a big hypocrite, I didn’t go.

The next morning my whole hand hurt so badly I couldn’t deny something was not right. I took the bandage off…and blood started gushing out of the cut. CRAP. So I called Dr. Looove’s office (she’s my doctor too!), because the idea of going to the ER in the middle of the day, with Maddie in tow, was NOT appealing. Luckily, Dr. Looove told me to come see her.

She looked at my cut and asked how long it had been since I’d cut my finger. It had been about, oh, sixteen hours at that point. She gave me A Look, then said it was too late for stitches. I’m not going to say I wasn’t immensely pleased when she said that, although I can honestly say that I didn’t know there was a window on when you can and can not get stitches. Dr. Looove admonished me for not going to the ER right after I hurt myself, telling me I needed “several” stitches, but she totally understood when I said I didn’t really feel like shelling out my $100 ER copay for a few finger stitches. I mean, really, I don’t care if I have a scar on my pinkie finger. I’ll tell everyone I got it in the gang wars.

Dr. Looove said she’d get a nurse to clean and repair my finger, but she couldn’t find one that was available so she decided to do it herself so I wouldn’t have to wait. This both pleased and terrified me. Doctors just…aren’t…gentle. They don’t have that magic way of making things not hurt the way nurses do. With the exception of the nurse I dubbed “Stabby” back in my hospital bed rest days, I’ve never had a nurse hurt me. I’ve had PLENTY of doctors hurt me. My OB did a blood draw once that made me cry. Man, I hated her.

Anyway, Dr. Loove was as gentle as she could be as she cleaned out my finger but it still STUNG TO HIGH HEAVEN, and then she had to push my wound closed while she glued it shut and applied Steri Strips. It took everything I had not to scream. It HURT. The whole process took a lot longer than I expected. Which meant Dr. Looove and I had a lot of one on one time. Sure, Maddie was there in her stroller, but she didn’t really add much to the conversation. Dr. Looove asked me a bunch of questions about how Maddie was doing, so I filled her in on the feeding specialist and she laughed. Then she asked how Mike and I were doing so I filled her in on us…and then there was silence. And for some reason I just couldn’t bide the silence. I couldn’t! I could feel this terrible bubble rising in me where I was about to admit that I stalk her on facebook (we’re not friends but we’re in the same network). I tried to push it down, but I opened my mouth to tell her how pretty she looked at her sister’s wedding…and then she interrupted me.

“Well, I just want to say that you and Mike are doing an amazing job with Madeline.”

“Oh. OH! Thank you! That’s very sweet of you!” (DON’T TELL HER YOU STALK HER FACEBOOK HEATHER!)

“I don’t have my own kids yet (I already knew that, she is Mike’s age and unmarried with no kids, thank you Facebook!), but I obviously see a lot of kids and their parents, and you two handle everything so well, and Maddie is just doing fantastic. You should be really proud.”

And then she gave me this really sincere look that made me want to cry a little.

“Oh! Well, thank you. We just do the best we can, we love her and we want her to be healthy, and you’re a great doctor and pretty and thanks and all that!”

Then she gave me a look like, “did you just call me pretty?” and said, “OK. Next time, don’t be such a chicken about stitches! You have to at least ACT tougher than Maddie!”

And then I almost said, “you should totally update your facebook status to ‘just busted a patient!'” but luckily she walked out of the exam room before anymore verbal diarrhea could escape past my lips.

So, see?! Someone was nice to me! Don’t worry, I’m sure the universe will right itself very soon.